Michael Rossiter

Search terms: painting, oil, watercolour, surreal, abstract

About the Artist

Michael Rossiter was born in England in late 1974, shortly after his birth his parents (English father and Australian mother) decided to move back to Sydney, Australia, where they had met a few years earlier, to raise their family on Sydney’s idyllic northern beaches.

Michael Rossiter has loved drawing for as long as he can remember and showed great creativity early on in his academic life. His school teachers, noticing his talents for visual art as early as age 10, nurtured this talent by asking Michael to illustrate the school annuals and a cookbook. Michael also painted backdrops for the yearly school theatre production.

In the years after leaving high school Michael continued to develop his artistic skills and pursue the arts not only visual arts but due to a love of electronic music Michael also taught himself the art of DJing and more recently taught himself electronic music production using advanced software including Ableton’s Live and Propellerhead’s Reason.

Michael Rossiter is an up and coming Australian contemporary artist. His style is very unique, some would even say strange, surreal, dreamlike and whimsical. He has been likened to Salvador Dali for some of the more surreal aspects of his paintings. He has an eye for detail, fine lines and colour. Many of his paintings include cloud formations, trees and always an element of life - worldly or other worldly.

After many years of sketching, pen and ink and watercolour, Michael decided in 2003 to try his hand at oil on canvas and has never looked back, preferring this medium for its depth of colour, workability and vibrant finish. His passion for this medium saw him produce a collection of artwork readying him for his debut solo exhibition “Never a Dull Moment” in 2006. This exhibition was held at The Artists Gallery in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Michael’s work was well received, not only selling artworks prior to the official opening of the show, but going on to sell half of the artworks exhibited and being approached for commissioned work.

In 2007 Michael was awarded the inaugural Blackheath Art Prize for his artwork “Dusk” which was judged by a curator of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. This judge also awarded a Highly Commended for his painting “Winter Magic” in the same exhibition.

In 2008 Michael was awarded 2nd place and People’s Choice for his artwork “Twilight” at a Members Only Exhibition at the Blackheath Art Society. Later that year Michael held his second solo exhibition "Nightscapes and Nonsense" at the Hat Hill Gallery, Blackheath, Australia.

Michael lives and works in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia with his wife and two young children, and is currently working on a new collection of contemporary artworks with plans to exhibit this collection in Sydney, Australia in 2012.